Instead of pipelines should Alberta make more refineries?

YES!!! They should and the crude should be refined to a state that it wouldn’t be as harmful to the environment in case of a pipe line failure.

Would a gasoline pipeline leak be less harmful than a crude leak?

… or perhaps, less likely? ^^^

It doesn’t have to refined all the way to gasoline,just less harmful than crude in case of a pipeline failure.

@jaytkay “Would a gasoline pipeline leak be less harmful than a crude leak?”

Yes. And certainly less harmful than a tarsands crude leak.

But you need to have a retail outlet for all the gasoline that Texas can use. Alberta needs the retail customers totaling Texas or Louisiana.

Alberta is already exporting to retail customers. They aren’t hoarding the oil.

And gasoline in Texas can be exported. Exporting crude from the US is pretty much forbidden by law. But we export lots of gasoline.

There’s something askew with my understanding of this. Of course it makes sense to locate refineries as close to the source as possible. Since refined products are far more valuable, Canada is effectively shipping the potential profits to Texas. Are refined products more volatile or difficult to transport?

@stanleybmanly Refineries are expensive and costly to operate and maintain, and yes we (Canada) are effectively shipping potential profits to the US.
Doesn’t make any sense to us Canadians either, put a damn refinery at the tar sands and at least refine it to a state that isn’t so harmful to the environment if and when a pipe line fails, but both Governments don’t seem very keen on that idea.

Commie libs are making a big deal out of nothing over this pipeline. If there’s one industry that’s proven it can be trusted to safeguard the environment it’s the oil industry.

@Darth_Algar, I can only presume that you are being facetious. I am sure you know that all energy companies have a long history of damaging the environment and go to great lengths to avoid the cost of mitigating the problems they create. Their bottom line is short-term profits, a reality that pervades most if not all corporations. It seems that their business is more to profit from selling shares of stocks than from the production of goods and services.

@Darth_Algar I really hope you are saying that in jest, but with you one never knows??

@Bill1939 I took @Darth_Algar ‘s comment as sarcasm (clever sarcasm).

I figured the sarcasm would have been as obvious as a floodlight on a moonless, overcast night.

I suspect the real reason there’s no eagerness for refineries close to the source has to do with the flaws involved with today’s version of capitalism, and the mania around profit and expenses in the short term. And when you think about it, this is almost exactly the same reason that there is no longer any urgency these days to construct the pipeline itself. There’s not a hint of the frantic urgency from proponents and predictions of certain doom without the pipeline that were howled at us a couple of years ago. And this is because of the volatility in oil prices and the marked decline in the price of the stuff.

Billions of dollars are involved.

It has to be more cost effective to pipe out the crude, or they would do something else.